Midnight Garden

[Rose]

It would appear that the borrowed "secondhand smoke" theory of the Carbon traders is wearing thin.

Climategate: We're winning!

"But only in a Crecy (1346) way rather than an Agincourt (1415) way – which is to say we’ve got an awful long way to go before this war’s over.
Still, I do think we evil Climate Change Deniers can take heart from this characteristically incisive piece by Brian Micklethwait at the libertarian/classical liberal website Samizdata. (Hat tip: Richard North).

Micklethwait draws parallels between “climate change” and the Cold War.

Meanwhile, the AGW debate has arrived at the same position that the Cold War argument had arrived at in or around about 1970 to 1980. An informed minority of pro-economic-progress critics had won the academic argument against the pro-economic-derangement academics, and word of this victory was spreading. And a particular thing that happened then is starting to happen now, which is that even intelligent layman critics of the John Redwood (and Brian Micklethwait) variety are starting to understand the details of the argument better than even the very smartest of the pro-derangement scientists, of the sort who are still advising governments, or who are still receiving and still trying still to believe this advice.

Micklethwait is right. We sceptics have started to wipe the floor with our opponents in a way that just wasn’t possible twelve months ago. The “smoking gun” evidence kindly provided by the Climategate leakster has been a huge help of course. As too has Mother Nature (I call her Clima-tor). But the real boost has been the following wind provided by shifting public opinion."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/james ... e-winning/?

[Rose]

First adventures in population control.

In 1998, Liam Donaldson became the 15th Chief Medical Officer for England

Chance of a lifetime Total Eclipse 1999


Total eclipse will bring chaos to Cornwall
"Planners in Cornwall expect chaos when eclipse-hunters descend on the county next year.
Traffic gridlock, food and water shortages, sanitation problems, lack of accommodation and added stress on the emergency services are anticipated when 1.5m people arrive to see the first total solar eclipse over Britain for 72 years.

Astronomer Heather Couper explains the attraction for amateurs and professionals alike: "It's rather like people being desperate to see Haley's comet as they were years ago.
"It's something that people really ought to see at least once in their lives - its like something you've never experienced before."
But most accommodation is already booked up so there is likely to be a relaxation of planning regulations to allow farmers to convert their fields into temporary campsites.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/148962.stm


Hotels charge earth to see eclipse
"Sue Jesson, managing director of the Barrowfield, said her hotel faced additional costs, with suppliers charging premium prices and that it also intended to stage "spectacular" events during the week. She said the deal represented good value. "If you stay in a hotel in London you'll pay pounds 200 a night and that's without food. We are expecting a lot of demand for accommodation and we will have to put up our own staff who won't get home because of the congestion."

The manager of the Headland, John Armstrong, said the extra cost was justified by additional services the hotel planned. "We have a lecture by a scientist the night before the eclipse and a party the night after. With all the warnings about Cornwall becoming jammed people may not be able to get out into the county, so we are providing them with full board."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/hotel ... 79071.html

Then the scaremongering starts.


Chief Medical Officer Warns Solar Eclipse Watchers

Don't chance a glance

The Government's Chief Medical Officer today urged solar eclipse watchers to play safe with their eyesight and watch it on television.
Speaking at a briefing attended by eyesight experts, Professor Liam Donaldson reinforced the Department of Health's clear and straightforward advice to members of the public on protecting their eyesight on 11 August.

He said: "The only safe way to view the eclipse is to do so indirectly. Looking directly at the sun is extremely dangerous as radiation can permanently damage the eye.
"The safest way to view the eclipse outdoors is indirectly with, for example, a pinhole projection viewer. But if you want to enjoy the full effect of this phenomenon - use your TV set."
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsand ... DH_4025712
Broadcast ad infinitum on all media

1.5m + people hide inside their houses and miss the once-in-a-lifetime spectacle!

Cornwall is deserted and its residents go bust after investing money they hadn't got in providing for visitors that were now too frightened to come.

(I know, I went, I'd been looking forward to it for ages)

I learnt a lot from that and so it appears did they.
Coming next - Y2K!

[Rose]

Steven Mosher: the real hero of Climategate?

Steven who?

Well according to a superb and profound piece of investigative journalism by Patrick Courrielche at Big Journalism, he’s the eminence grise of the Climategate leak.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/james ... imategate/?

From the first link

How Climategate Marks the Maturing of a New Science Movement

"The global-warming establishment’s futile attempt to resist pressure from an opposing, grassroots collective caused a shift to occur – displaying a process known in certain scientific circles as self-organization. The new order that has emerged has placed a new definition on the label peer — that of an amorphous group of intelligent online observers, detached from the outcome, with an extremely solid grasp on the topic at hand. This peer-to-peer review network surrounds and attacks the study, in search of chinks in its armor. It’s not pretty, but through this social, open dialogue, problem areas inevitably rise to the top. In a case where politics comes into play, it appears that this review process is much more rigorous – it ostensibly sanitizes the outcome from the affects of interested parties.

This is the point that one must take from Climategate.

We no longer live in an age where a system can be entirely controlled. Information lacks the protective coat that it once had – bureaucracies can be infiltrated and cracked, and access to broadcast tools are pervasive. When a system is no longer operating correctly, pressures mount, causing an inevitable instability. And when the hands of Big Government play a part in molding the consensus, or in this case Big Global Government, the peer-to-peer review network and the undermedia will play the unavoidable role of getting to the truth – a truth desperately needed when crafting policy that will affect every living human and their offspring

[Rose]

The painful legacy of frivolous lawsuits.


Householders and businesses have been warned not to clear snowy pavements - as they could be sued if someone slips.
Icy paths mean hospitals have been inundated with patients who have broken bones in falls.
But the professional body that represents health-and-safety experts has warned businesses not to grit public paths.
In its guidance to members, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health warns that if people assume an area is clear and then slip and injure themselves, they could take legal action claiming damages.

And members of the public say they have been warned by councils about the legal risks."
"John McQuater, president of the National Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, admitted:
'If you do nothing you cannot be liable. If you do something, you could be liable to legal action.'"

"The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents also expressed its disappointment that public safety was being neglected because of fears of possible litigation."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ail+Online)


England's hospitals inundated with ice injuries

"Hospitals across England are struggling to cope with the influx of injured people as continuing freezing weather leaves roads and pavements treacherous.
Hundreds of people have suffered fractures slipping over."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8448756.stm

Hospital plea as ice falls put pressure on hospitals

"Hospitals across south Wales say the icy conditions are sending admissions to accident and emergency units through the roof.
The Abertawe Bro Morgannwg Trust, covering Swansea to Bridgend, says it has been dealing with a constant stream of fall injuries.
It is urging people not to venture out in the ice, especially the elderly."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8445703.stm

[Rose]

Climategate goes American: NOAA, GISS and the mystery of the vanishing weather stations

"For those who haven’t seen it, here’s a link to US weatherman John Coleman’s magisterial demolition of the Great AGW Scam. I particularly recommend part 4 because that’s the one with all the meat. It shows how temperature readings have been manipulated at the two key climate data centres in the United States – the NASA Goddard Science and Space Institute at Columbia University in New York and the NOAA National Climate Data Center in Ashville, North Carolina. (Hat tip: Platosays)

This is a scandal to rank with Climategate.

What it shows is that, just like in Britain at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) temperature data records have been grotesquely distorted by activist scientists in order to exaggerate the appearance of late 20th century global warming.
They achieved this – with an insouciant disregard for scientific integrity which quite beggars belief – through the simple expedient of ignoring most of those weather station sited in higher, colder places and using mainly ones in warmer spots.
Then, they averaged out the temperature readings given by the warmer stations to give a global average.

Et voila: exactly the scary “climate change” they needed to persuade bodies like the IPCC that AGW was a clear and present danger requiring urgent pan-governmental action."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/james ... -stations/?

[Rose]

"BUFFETED by complaints about its inaccurate weather forecasts, the Met Office now faces being dumped by the BBC after almost 90 years.

The Met Office contract with the BBC expires in April and the broadcaster has begun talks with Metra, the national forecaster for New Zealand, as a possible alternative.

The BBC put the contract out to tender to ensure “best value for money”, but its timing coincides with a storm over the Met Office’s accuracy.

Last July the state-owned forecaster’s predictions for a “barbecue summer” turned into a washout. And its forecast for a mild winter attracted derision when temperatures recently plunged as low as -22C."
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 991064.ece

[Rose]

World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown

"A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi."



"WWF cited it in a report called An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China. The report credited Hasnain's 1999 interview with the New Scientist. But it was a campaigning report rather than an academic paper so it was not subjected to any formal scientific review. Despite this it rapidly became a key source for the IPCC when Lal and his colleagues came to write the section on the Himalayas.

When finally published, the IPCC report did give its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the likelihood of the glaciers melting was "very high". The IPCC defines this as having a probability of greater than 90%.

The report read: "Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate."

Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, has previously dismissed criticism of the Himalayas claim as "voodoo science".
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 991177.ece

[Rose]

xiaolee

The last total solar eclipse for Boston was apparently on October 2,1959, and the next one is unfortunately on May 1, 2079, which is a long time to wait.
You might have to travel, but its well worth seeing.

St. Louis, MO - 2017, August 21
Dallas, TX - 2024, April 8
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/050408_ ... lipse.html

Total Solar Eclipse 2017
http://www.mcglaun.com/eclipse/2017/maps.htm
Gives you a map of the eclipse path so you can choose the best spot.

Wonderful sight, it goes from day to sunset to midnight to sunrise all in a short time,and all the birds panic and come swiftly in to roost.

[Rose]

James Hansen: Would you buy a used temperature data set from THIS man?

"Before we get too worried about NASA’s latest stamping-its-little-feet claims that the world is getting hotter it is it is it IS, let us first remind ourselves why we should trust their temperature records slightly less far than we can spit.

Then let’s have a closer look at the character and motives of the man in charge of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), Dr James Hansen. Last year, he was described by his former course supervisor at NASA, Dr John Theon, as an “activist” and an embarrassment.

Or as the Great Booker puts it:

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)

Now reader Michael Potts has drawn my attention to yet further evidence of Dr Hansen’s radical, virulently anti-democratic instincts. He has lent his support to an eco-fascist book advising on ways to destroy western industrialisation through propaganda, guile and outright sabotage"

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/james ... -this-man/

[Rose]

UN climate change expert: there could be more errors in report

"The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position today even as further errors were identified in the panel's assessment of Himalayan glaciers.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for him to resign over the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s retraction of a prediction that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035"

"But he admitted that there may have been other errors in the same section of the report, and said that he was considering whether to take action against those responsible.
“I know a lot of climate sceptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them,” he told The Times in an interview. “It was a collective failure by a number of people,” he said. “I need to consider what action to take, but that will take several weeks. It’s best to think with a cool head, rather than shoot from the hip.”

The IPCC’s 2007 report, which won it the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high”.

But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 999051.ece

[Rose]

UN climate panel blunders again over Himalayan glaciers

"The chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has used bogus claims that Himalayan glaciers were melting to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

"Rajendra Pachauri's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), based in New Delhi, was awarded up to £310,000 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the lion's share of a £2.5m EU grant funded by European taxpayers.
It means that EU taxpayers are funding research into a scientific claim about glaciers that any ice researcher should immediately recognise as bogus"

"In India questions are also being asked about Pachauri's links with GloriOil, a Houston, Texas-based oil technology company that specialises in recovering extra oil from declining oil fields . Pachauri is listed as a founder and scientific advisor.
Critics say it is odd for a man committed to decarbonising energy supplies to be linked to an oil company."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 999975.ece


UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters

"THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.
It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny — and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

The claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is already affecting the severity and frequency of global disasters, has since become embedded in political and public debate. It was central to discussions at last month's Copenhagen climate summit, including a demand by developing countries for compensation of $100 billion (£62 billion) from the rich nations blamed for creating the most emissions.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 000063.ece


Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn't been verified
‘ We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0dUoPiTkG

[Rose]

Banks are pulling out of the carbon-offsetting market after Copenhagen failed to reach agreement on emissions targets.

Banks and investors are pulling out of the carbon market after the failure to make progress at Copenhagen on reaching new emissions targets after 2012.
Carbon financiers have already begun leaving banks in London because of the lack of activity and the drop-off in investment demand. The Guardian has been told that backers have this month pulled out of a large planned clean-energy project in the developing world because of the expected fall in emissions credits after 2012.

Anthony Hobley, partner and global head of climate change and carbon finance at law firm Norton Rose, said: "People will gradually start to leave carbon desks, we are beginning to see that already. We are seeing a freeze in banks' recruitment plans for the carbon market. It's not clear at what point this will turn into a cull or a rout."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... agen-banks

[Rose]

Next up - A fraud to finance a hoax

Smokers cough up for Abbott climate policy

"AN INCREASE in tobacco taxes is one option being canvassed within the Coalition to fund its greenhouse gas abatement policy to be unveiled next week.
It is understood the revenue source will be discussed at today's meeting of the shadow cabinet which will have its first look at the policy the Opposition climate change spokesman, Greg Hunt, developed over the summer.
Under the leadership of Tony Abbott, the Coalition abandoned support for a market-based mechanism such as a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme to reduce emissions.
These schemes are self-funding, using the revenue made by taxing polluters, whereas the ''direct action'' measures the Coalition will unveil - including tree planting and soil management - will require extraneous funds.
The tobacco tax increase will be put on the table today as one way of raising the money needed without damaging the budget bottom line or imposing an unpopular tax."
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/sm ... -n1rz.html?

[Rose]

The case against Dr Phil 'Climategate' Jones

"Dr Phil Jones – the (suspended) head of the Prince of Wales’s favourite AGW-promotion institution the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia – had a narrow squeak the other day. Though the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found his department in breach of Freedom of Information laws (Jones and his team had deliberately withheld or conspired to destroy data), Jones was able to escape prosecution on a technicality.

Next time, he may not be so lucky. Our friend John O’Sullivan at Climategate.com has been looking closely at the Climategate emails and reckons there is still a very strong case for a criminal prosecution, which could see Dr Jones facing ten years on fraud charges."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/james ... ate-jones/?

[Rose]

Climate chief was told of false glacier claims before Copenhagen

"The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.

Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.

The IPCC’s report underpinned the proposals at Copenhagen for drastic cuts in global emissions.

Dr Pachauri, who played a leading role at the summit, corrected the error last week after coming under media pressure. He told The Times on January 22 that he had only known about the error for a few days. He said: “I became aware of this when it was reported in the media about ten days ago. Before that, it was really not made known. Nobody brought it to my attention"

"However, a prominent science journalist said that he had asked Dr Pachauri about the 2035 error last November"

Dr Pachauri had previously dismissed a report by the Indian Government which said that glaciers might not be melting as much as had been feared. He described the report, which did not mention the 2035 error, as “voodoo science”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 009081.ece